Roxanne in Night Vale
by Dark.Silver.Flower
Summary: FEMALE, 25, "NORMAL" ...DESERTED IN NIGHT VALE / Call me Roxanne. I live in Night Vale. I'm supposed to be in Nova Scotia. Sometimes planes just don't reach their destinations. Writing utensils have been outlawed in Night Vale, so here is my only confessional, a stunted attempt to regain my sanity in a land where madness lurks around every corner. [See Tumblr for latest updates]
1. Entry One

I occasionally find myself composing this inner monologue in a half-baked and utterly sadistic attempt to retain my mental sanity. My past is rather irrelevant at this point in time, given that the things I have learned _on the outside_ haven't proven to be very useful, here in Night Vale.

And yet here I sit in the middle of the bathroom of my two-bedroom apartment, along with the neighbor's kid who always seems to be sticking her freckled little nose into my business. Both of us are slathered in low-SPF sunblock. It makes walking about the room without sliding a bit of a tricky task.

"I'm hungry," Aurora suddenly wines, lying on her back and waving her arms half-heartedly in the air.

I'm busy tuning the portable radio I keep in my apartment. "You heard what Cecil said," I reply. "If it's outside of the bathroom, I'd rather not chance it right now."

"Since when do you listen to Cecil?" she nearly sneers.

I have, in my mere two months of living in this southwestern town, learned many things, including controlling the overwhelming urge to slap this particular child. "Yeah, I've been a little more cautious since I nearly snapped my neck falling over a dead reindeer last week."

Aurora continues the waving motion with her arms, still fixated on the ceiling. "Ooooooh, glow cloud."

I sigh. "Glow cloud and now winged dinosaurs of some sort?" I lean against the wall, content with the strength of the night's broadcast. "Man, I just wanted to board a normal plane to Halifax but somehow ended up here and even though it's been two months everyone is still trying to convince me there has never been an airport in Night Vale..." I briefly tune into the broadcast again. "Pah, Tyranador Attack Gate, just what we needed this week."

Aurora makes an effort to sit up and perhaps be a little less annoying. "How did the town meeting go today?"

"We're apparently removing the lead door from Radon Canyon. Needless to say, Carlos isn't very happy."

"He's your boss, isn't he?" she asks, innocent and oddly fixated on the subject.

"He sure is. I'm glad I can put some of my lab skills to use way out here in the sticks."

She giggles. "Cecil likes him."

I couldn't help but smirk and turn my head to the radio. "He sure does." I nod my chin at the dials.

"Isn't lead dangerous?" she asks, still innocent and full of curiosity.

I shake my head. "Not unless you plan on eating the door or maybe licking it every day for a few years. It's important in holding back radiation. You know, from the _plutonium _that it's been apparently containing."

She stares with wide eyes, overwhelmed.

It's a night made for sighing, I figure. "No, the lead is very helpful in the door."

I can hear sudden banging my own front door, which presumably does not contain heavy metals of any dubious sort. I pause, weighing the risks and benefits of remaining safe in the bathroom, but presumably being quite rude to my potential guest versus acting like what would typically be considered a rational human and take the minimal risk of death-by-flying-dinosaur-attack.

I decide I should take the opportunity to remain a normal human being, while I still can.

Aurora has some objections. "You're not going out there, are you?"

I reach for the doorknob before me as I speak, "I've already been forced to store all of my books under tarps on the balcony because of the PSA stating they are unfit for human living quarters. I _love_ those books and my right to have them in my own home has been stripped of me. I'll be damned if some backwater council members are going to tell me I can't answer my own door."

I brace myself as I enter the living room.


	2. Entry One, part two

I have recently had the decades-old shag carpeting removed from the main living area and attached corridor, but installation of the new hardwood floors isn't going to happen until at least Wednesday, according to the asthmatic flooring salesperson I spoke to on the phone. I heard him take at least three puffs on an inhaler during the duration of our call. I hope he's still alive. People tend to come face to face with their mortality from far stranger things around here.

My landlord doesn't seem to mind the renovations. In fact, I haven't seen the hooded man since the day I moved in. When I called about a leaky sink during my first week of residence, his answering machine picked up with a recording of what seemed to be heavy, agitated breathing followed by the click of the receiver. I was too distressed to bother leaving a message. Nonetheless a plumber came by the following day.

The raw plywood flooring irritates my feet as I round the corner of the hallway... slowly... slowly. I hear the soft thud of the door shutting. The source of the knocking is in my apartment.

I pause, my heartbeat pounding softly in my ears. I shimmy to the broom closet and retrieve a wooden training sword, a momento from a childhood spent training in various forms of martial arts. Everyone knows soccer is for squares.

Jumping behind the couch in the living room I make my demand. "Who's there!?" I shout, swinging the sword in front of me.

I suddenly realize my lapse in judgment, noticing that I am absolutely dripping with sunblock of the slow SPF variety. The sword slides from my hands, hurtling itself across the room and half heartedly impaling itself into the wall opposite me with a CRACK.

The woman, as the person turned out to be, turns towards me, not seeming to notice my breathtaking failure at home security.

"Roxanne, I think you need to get some sleep... but take a shower, first".

It's Adrienne Klein, the friendly, unfazable photographer from The Night Vale Daily Journal who just so happens to live in the apartment directly above mine. She's leaning on my bookcase, her thick, midnight blue hair pulled into a sloppy braid down her back. She swears that it's her natural color. I've never seen her roots.

"Sorry I let myself in. I thought you might still be in your bathroom. My contact in city council says they're lifting the Pterodactyl Warning soon. I know how you're not from around here and tend to get worked up about these things so..." she gets a bit flustered and breaks eye contact, "Just wanted to ease your mind, I guess. Or whatever. You know what I mean."

I flop into the overstuffed chair I had purchased from the local consignment shop and call out to the hall, "Aurora, safe to come out!" I turn my attention back to my guest. "Uh, thanks for the warning, I guess."

Adrienne blushes and nods. "Also, if you're not busy tomorrow," she adds, "I was wondering if you would maybe like to go get lunch together? I figure it might be nice to get out and enjoy the unseasonably cool weather, you know?" The last bit sort of rushes out of her mouth.

I cut her off before she can become too embarrassed. "Of course I will! I have my day off, anyways. As long as the glow cloud stays on the other side of town, that is."

She smiles, relieved. "Yeah, I'm really not a huge fan of it, myself. I see your wound from when you tripped over that moose or whatever is mostly healed up, now."

I feel for the raw pink splotch on the back of my neck, barely visible beneath my shoulder length mass of dark curls. I hope she doesn't notice that my chronic sunburn has worsened since she witnessed the injury first hand. She had then documented the incident to include in an article pertaining to the sudden appearance of the glow cloud. That had been the first time Adrienne and I had really spoken.

"Just keep that moist. And I'll see you tomorrow," says with a smile as she works her way towards the doorway.

"Wait," I stop her, standing. I see her eyes rush up to meet mine, her typically unfailable confidence seeping back into her.

"It was a reindeer," I add.

"Goodnight, Roxanne," she laughs, her dark hair blending into the night.

Aurora makes her way past me, heading in the direction of the kitchen.

"Miss Klein doesn't seem like usual self when she's around you, Roxy," she says, as though an afterthought on her quest to retrieve off-brand grape soda from the refrigerator.

"Say what you want, Rora, but that woman is the kind of friend you want to keep. Speaking of our neighbors, we have to share the panic room with the second and third floors if anything worse than prehistoric creatures crashing the PTA meeting happens, so make sure you don't stick too much inessential stuff down there when we're stocking, okay?" I sort of bang the heel of my foot against the unfinished floors to prevent jinxing myself.

Aurora the All Knowing (as I sometimes call her) replies, "You changed the subject" before disappearing to devour far more sugar than a decent guardian would allow. But she's not my kid, though it's usually kind of hard to tell. "I get first shower," she adds, as though asserting some sort of prize for her supposed victory in not violating the rules of basic conversation.

I sigh once again, removing the wooden sword from the plaster of the wall. Though I would really love to meet friends for lunch, I know better than to make definite plans. Night Vale always has something unexpected up its clouded sleeves ready to trip up an overly-educated outsider at a moment's notice.


	3. Entry Two

I awake around two o'clock in the morning, incapable of grasping sleep. For once it isn't for fear of the second coming of those ghastly dreams with which many of the citizens of Night Vale are plagued. Those dreams that break your sleep with a cold sweat and a mind forgetful of their contents.

My bedroom window glows with the lights from Radon Canyon, just outside of the town's limits. In my honest opinion, it appears to be some sort of laser show. The beams fly high into the sky and then fall to the ground in a rhythmic pattern. I have never been to the canyon before. My lungs wouldn't be up for the challenge.

Tonight I think about what I'm going to order at lunch tomorrow with Adrienne. I think about Adrienne, the person, as well.

Morning comes.

"Take me bowling! It's going to be super hot today! I even heard from Jenny at school that it's half price now that Mr. Williams found a secret underground city beneath the town center." Aurora states at breakfast with every ounce of her seven years of maturity. Her feet dangle from the high barstool at the kitchen counter.

I pour her a bowl of frosted mini wheats, the strawberry kind. "How do you know it's going to be hot today? I haven't heard a real forecast since moving here. And Mr. Williams has a couple of screws loose, in my opinion, but I never said that."

"It's going to be hoooot, Roxy!" she declares, skirting around my question and shoving a spoon full of fiber-rich cereal into her little mouth.

I lean on the counter, buttering a crusty roll. "Tell you what," I finally say, "If you go and visit Miss Josie for the day and help her around the house, I'll take you bowling after I get back from lunch."

Aurora makes a sour face. "But those Angels that follow her around scare me. Besides, they help her with chores so she doesn't really need me."

"Even little old ladies who live near the car lot need actual human interaction, Rora. Think about how happy you will make her."

She chugs half a glass of orange juice. I don't correct her. She may even need fruit juice chugging skills to save her life some day. Who knows? This is Night Vale, after all.

"Fiiiiiiine," she finally replies, "But I want honey wings when we go! They're free with the bowling, anyways…"

I wave my hand dismissively. "Yeah, sure. I don't really eat them anyways."

Aurora smiles, a thin line of milk trailing from the corner of her mouth. She wipes it with her sleeve. "What are you going to wear on your date?"

I hand her a napkin. "It's not a date, Rora. It's just lunch with a fr—"

"It is so a date," she replies, finding some sort of insatiable need to correct me. "I think you should wear that Loyd teeshirt! It's pretty."

I pause from chewing to think about which shirt this may be.

"You don't mean the Pink Floyd teeshirt, do you?"

She drops her spoon into her bowl of milk with a clang. "Yah! The pink shirt!"

"The fact the shirt is pink is either coincidental or meant to be ironic… well, not ironic, I guess the opposite of that. The word 'Pink' is in the name of the band; it was very hard to find one of their shirts in that color."

Aurora nods. I doubt she understands. "Okay, wear the pink Pink Loyd shirt."

"Floyd. Repeat after me. Floyd."

"Ffffffloyd." Some particles of food fly from her mouth. Being a child, she is unbothered by this.

I gesture for her to put the bowl in the sink. "Go get yourself ready. I'll drop you off at Josie's house along the way."

After leaving Aurora at Night Vale's resident Angel headquarters, I take the opportunity to drive into downtown before noon and go shopping at some of the comparatively "normals" stores. I decide to first stop into the Old Navy outlet, its only flaw being the poltergeist that occasionally haunts changing room six.

The air conditioning is a welcome relief to the late morning heat. I nod politely to the clerk behind the counter at the front of the store. She seems to do a double take as I pass by, but does not return the gesture.

A small child and his mother pass by as I work my way among the racks. I smile and wave down at the little boy. He gapes at me, seeming to glimpse into my soul as his mouth opens in what appears to be silent terror. His mother urges him to follow her. No one says a word.

I make my way to the shelf full of half-price denim in a secluded portion at the back of the large shop, considering what cut of jean would look best on me. I'm fairly tall, I figure, so there's a lot I could pull off…

Aaaand that's not a size ten.

That's not denim.

So what am I holding in my hands?

I look up. It's a cloak. A cloak most definitely not made of denim. The hooded figure points to me as I am hypnotized by the glow beneath his cowl.

I'm pretty sure that's not my landlord.


End file.
